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MTR3000 VSWR error

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blhar15

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Dec 12, 2014
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Waterloo, IA
My MTR3000 repeater is giving me a VSWR error. It operates fine and repeats the signal, but immediately after operation the red LED come on. I have RDAC and checked condition, says VSWR minor alarm.

What could be causing this?

Thanks
 

N0UJT

Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2013
Messages
16
Location
Omaha, NE
My MTR3000 repeater is giving me a VSWR error. It operates fine and repeats the signal, but immediately after operation the red LED come on. I have RDAC and checked condition, says VSWR minor alarm.

What could be causing this?

Thanks
+1 what the other reply said. You likely have a problem with the antenna, feedline, or duplexer. Put a dummy load on the far end of the feedline to isolate if it's before or after the antenna, or find someone with a SiteHawk or similar antenna analyzer that can give you distance to the fault.
 

blhar15

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I appreciate the replies. So I did some testing, unhooked the duplexer and hooked up a dummy load to each side of the repeater and no error. The minute I hooked up the duplexer I got the error. I am assuming at this point it is the duplexer and if that is the case, is is just a bad duplexer or not tuned properly. Any more advise is helpful.

Thank you
 

900mhz

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Did you try it with the antenna hooked up directly to the TX port on the repeater, bypassing the duplexer, and associated cabling?
 

blhar15

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No I did not, it is at a remote site just in a test bench environment. I did change out the cabling and tested both ways between the repeater and duplexer, which did not make a difference.
 

900mhz

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okay. So If I understand, you did try the test with the antenna removed from the antenna port on the duplexer and replaced the antenna with the dummy load on that port of the duplexer.
 

blhar15

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Yes, I have two dummy loads. So I unhooked the duplexer and tried dummy loads direct to the repeater with no error. Hooked the duplexer up and hooked dummy load to antenna port and got the error.
 

blhar15

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Waterloo, IA
I also unhooked the duplexer and left the receive antenna hooked up, but put a dummy load on the transmit side of the repeater and no error. With an antenna on the transmit side I get an error.

Thanks
 

900mhz

Member
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Sounds like something flaky with the duplexer. Probably needs to be retuned on the bench, then touched up again once put back in place utilizing the antenna. Did you notice excessive RF power loss through the duplexer?
 

KevinC

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I may have missed it and apologize if I did, but did this ever work or is this a new setup that has no history?
 

mmckenna

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Yes, the duplexer is supposed to be tuned to my frequencies, but I have no way of checking it.

If it was tuned and then shipped to you, or shipped to the site, I'd suspect it got bounced around a little bit. Paying for someone to tune a duplexer and then ship it to you often results in this happening. I can think of a few similar posts like this one in the last few years.

If you don't have the tools to tune this, then it's worth paying someone to do it for you who does, and have them do it after it has been installed permanently at the site.
 

AM909

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I also unhooked the duplexer and left the receive antenna hooked up, but put a dummy load on the transmit side of the repeater and no error. With an antenna on the transmit side I get an error.

Thanks
@blhar15: Antenna hooked directly to the repeater TX and dummy load or something else on the repeater RX gives the error also (without the duplexer involved at all)?
 

blhar15

Newbie
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Dec 12, 2014
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Waterloo, IA
With an antenna hooked direct to the receiver and transmit side of the repeater, I get no error. Looks like it is probably a duplexer issue. Thanks for the replies.
 

N0UJT

Member
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Messages
16
Location
Omaha, NE
I think it was asked earlier, but have you tried just reversing the connections? Hooking the transmit line from the MTR to the RX port on your duplexer, and the Receive line from the MTR to the TX side of the duplexer? Maybe the ports are mislabeled. Just trying to cross off the easy stuff.
 

blhar15

Newbie
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Dec 12, 2014
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65
Location
Waterloo, IA
I did try reversing. I took the setup out to the site and hooked up everything with the duplexer and get the error. If I unhook from the duplexer and hook the antenna directly to the transmit side on the repeater, there is no error. I think it is the duplexer, so will need to confirm it is tuned correctly. Thanks
 
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